Timm: Yale must be a team

In light of the recent events on campus, I couldn’t find it in myself to write my usual light-hearted musings on Yale sports. It just didn’t feel right.

Instead, I wanted to find a way to integrate what can appear to be, in times like these, an insignificant page about sports with the current sentiment on campus. Impossible, you say? Maybe. But maybe not.

Reconciling a senseless death is never easy. Scholars and theologians alike have spent entire lives trying to make sense of or explain tragedies of this magnitude. Even so, they always seem to fall short of the mark. It seems that there are some things that we may never understand.

However, what we have learned is that although we cannot necessarily make sense of these recent events, we can rise out of our current despair if we do it together.

Human solidarity is one of the most powerful forces in this world. It has sparked countless revolutions, conversions and innovations throughout history. And it has helped grievers and mourners ever since the beginning of society.

Now, I know this is not as easy as suggesting that everyone join together in support of Yale athletics and all of our worries and sadness will vanish. That is not only unrealistic, it is also irreverent.

Instead, in a time when Yale’s sporting events have been pushed to the back burner, my plan is to use what we know about athletic teams to uplift our campus once again.

I believe that comfort and consolation in these desperate times will only be achieved if we band together, as a team, both to grieve and to overcome the tragedy of Annie Le’s GRD ’13 death.

Yale’s campus is not a stranger to misfortune and disaster. Nor is any college campus, for that matter. Over the years, our school has seen tragic accidents and unsolved crimes that still remain in the hearts of those who had to endure them.

And yet, we still thrive.

Each event sent shock waves through campus, but ignited a sense of unity among a student body that can be, at times, incredibly divided.

Every time the Yale “team” has been tested, by incomprehensible crime or catastrophe, we have triumphed as one unit. Through schoolwide candlelight vigils and memorial services, we come together to support each other as Yale University teammates above all else.

And just like athletic teams, it will take everyone at Yale to get us all through this difficult time. No matter how insignificant or removed we may feel, we never know who might be encouraged by our strength, comforted by our presence or consoled by our faith.

This is an important moment in our time as Yale students, or teammates, if you will. And, although it remains regrettable that it takes a tragedy to evoke this solidarity among us, it should be a reminder that, at the end of the day, we are all members of this Yale team, and we will always have that in common.

My heart and prayers go out to Annie Le, her family, her fiancé and her friends. I hope that they will be comforted in some small way by the manner in which the Yale community has embraced them and the memory of their wonderful daughter, fiancée and friend.